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Little Things Ruin It
- Reviewd on:
2008-10-21
By: Lowell Prescott
I've read so many good things about this camera that I almost hate to be a detractor. But as a hard-shooting amateur, I find this camera frustrating in so many ways that I'm already seeking a replacement after just a few months.
Some of the big things are OK (build, weight, menu structure, view finder, LCD, battery life, memory) but some of the biggest things are not (auto-focus speed and accuracy, image stabilization, lens, menu defaults, controls, zoom). But even if you can live with some of the subjective choices made by Olympus on the big things, their choices on many of the little things are pretty frustrating.
The bottom line:
- I frequently miss shots with this camera.
- I frequently get blurry pictures across many lighting conditions.
- Even when I get the shot, the images, while not terrible, are sub-standard in many ways (and I don't think this is a subjective read on my part, nor do I think I have a defective unit).
This is not my first Olympus UZ. That was the Olympus C-2100 2MP Digital Camera w/ 10x Optical Zoom, with which I took about 16,000 pictures over the last 6 1/2 years. That camera was a pioneer in the UZ category, featuring 10X optical zoom (100X digital), the earliest image stabilization and a fabulous lens made by Canon. Its only real downside was the 2.1MP resolution (which was at the low end even as it was introduced). Mine ultimately developed some dead pixels on the sensor which led me into a very quick search for a replacement.
I'd had such good luck with the Olympus, that I didn't even consider other brands. After reading a handful of reviews which labeled this camera the best of its class, I didn't even hesitate. I assumed that time had improved most of the features, and that the learning curve would be fairly small. The latter proved true, the former did not.
At 10MP, resolution is not an issue. The ability to save RAW and JPG simultaneously is fabulous, though slow (I don't use it regularly). The view finder and LCD are great. Battery life (with hybrid rechargeables and a few tweaks to the default settings) is superb. Some people complain about the menu structure, but there are a lot of features on this camera. I think the menu structure is pretty good. And this camera does feel good in the hand. The built-in flash is also much more usable than the one in its predecessor.
That's where the good ends.
The first questionable thing I noticed is that the camera was making unexpected decisions on which portion of the frame to use for auto-focusing. These decisions were not good. I have a whole bunch of early shots with some arbitrary element of the shot -- often far from the center -- in focus while everything else is fuzzy. This turns out to be a "feature" called "iESP" mode in which, according to the manual, "The camera determines which subject within the screen to focus on." I quickly disabled it in favor of the "spot" mode (center of the frame gets the focus). There are additional modes available, and though I realize there will be times when iESP is a usable feature, it simply should not be the default.
This also turns out to be the first of several senseless defaults that I discovered as I worked through the menus. These include:
- Movies default to recording without sound.
- The "record view" (which shows each picture for a second or two immediately after taking it) defaults to ON, but also defaults to the LCD screen even if you're using the viewfinder, rendering it virtually useless. By the time you get the camera away from your eye to view the captured image, it's gone.
- When using the viewfinder, by default the control panel is visible on the LCD. Unless you change settings frequently, this is a needless drain on the batteries.
Once I got the auto-focus mode changed, that's when I began to realize just how poor it is. It's slow, frequently inaccurate, and performs especially poorly in anything other than direct sunlight. On my previous Olympus, I had become accustomed to a quick and perfect focus every time. With the 570, it sometimes takes three or four tries before it can focus, and it almost requires a hard edge somewhere within the AF target mark. This may help explain why iESP is the default: it allows the camera to search for hard edges in the frame and use those to get a quicker focus lock. Unfortunately, it also means weird auto-focus decisions.
I appreciate the extended zoom range of this camera, especially at the wide angle end. But this comes with serious trade-offs.
First, the lens has some serious pin-cushioning problems which even zooming cannot completely alleviate. I often have to use my camera to take pictures of images in square frames. This camera makes that an especially difficult task.
Second, at the telephoto end, autofocus becomes a painful problem. I also take lots of pictures from the stands at baseball games, and this camera performs very poorly in that type of setting. Even worse, the image stabilization is of very little help. In my previous Olympus camera, handheld was always an option -- even at the 100X end. With this, even a tripod cannot guarantee that the image you see in the view finder will be the image you get. The simple act of pressing the shutter button is often enough to make it reset, which is very frustrating.
These problems render the optional digital zoom portion as essentially worthless. When all is said and done, the usable telephoto zoom on this camera is about the same as the earlier model (though there is definitely more useful range at the wide angle end if you can live with the pin-cushioning).
You will see mention in almost every review of the zoom ring on the lens. Most reviewers dismiss it as "not too bad." I have to disagree. It's very, very bad in design and implementation.
Some photographers may be able to adjust to its quirks, but I find them simply unacceptable. First and foremost, the zoom does not respond exactly to the turning of the ring. Sometimes it stops before you stop moving your hand, other times it continues zooming after you have stopped moving your hand. Moving it slowly sometimes results in a slower zoom, but the threshold between slow and fast zooming is hard to find. It is possible to move the ring and get no change whatsoever in the zoom. As a result, accuracy with the zoom is nearly impossible.
Though the concept is a throwback to the old SLRs of my childhood, the more modern alternative (a small lever near the shutter release which can be operated by the index finger of your shooting hand) is far superior. The ring on the 570 essentially forces the use of two hands, and even then cripples your ability to frame a shot as you wish on the fly.
And finally, the zoom ring turns the wrong direction. Counter-clockwise zooms in, clockwise zooms out. I am forever getting this wrong -- another reason for missing shots.
This last piece, the direction to turn the control, is just one of many annoying smaller things found in this camera. Among these are:
- You must remove the lens cap when the camera is powered on. I prefer to leave the power on with the lens cap on, then just slip the lens cap off when I'm ready to shoot. That's not possible with this camera.
- If you forget to take the lens cap off, you get an error message, the camera locks up, and you must cycle the power off and on. At a minimum, this triples the boot-up time.
- The edge of the lens cap is very close to the surface of the lens. Finger smudges on the lens have become a very real and common problem.
- There are some very subtle differences between the "P" mode and the "Auto" mode of shooting -- limitations which you may not realize until you look at the pictures later (I used "P" initially, then switched to "Auto" when I discovered some subtle improvements to the results).
- The so-called "smile detector" feature is worthless. Don't buy this camera for that. It just plain doesn't work unless all the conditions are perfect (a rarity).
- The camera sounds are LOUD, even at their quietest setting. The alternative, "silent mode", is so quiet that you can't tell when the shutter has snapped.
- The shutter snap sound is artificial, and there is no tactile sense that the shutter has snapped. The older Olympus had a soft mechanical click, and it was essential. Over time, this -- along with shutter lag -- have served to differentiate between the professional DSLR class and the amateur UltraZoom. There is no question that this camera is aimed at amateurs (and not even at a "prosumer" class user).
- When reviewing photos, they are displayed in either the viewfinder or on the LCD based on which you were using to take photos. Viewing pictures is difficult in the viewfinder, and there should be an option to specify that the LCD is always used for reviewing. But there is no such setting.
Finally, when you get used to all of the quirks on this camera and get ready to take a family picture, you will discover that this camera does not support the use of a remote control. There is a time delay shutter release, but that's just not the same.
If I had known this, I would not have purchased this camera.
I suppose that none of these things would be deal-breakers if the image quality was as exceptional as I have become used to with Olympus cameras. But I find the images soft and the colors somewhat wan. I came to discover that there are various menu settings which allow these characteristics to be adjusted (picture mode, sharpness, contrast, and saturation), but that seems ridiculous to me. I want crisp images and accurate colors. That should be the default (and only) option on the camera. Even after I have adjusted these settings at great length, the image quality remains quite flat.
An additional frustration does creep in with regard to the menus. Though I find their organization to be quite easy to navigate, I find myself frustrated because certain menu options are unavailable based on mode settings. For example, I don't understand why the "Camera Menu" is grayed out and unavailable when the camera is in "Auto" mode.
If you are drawn to this camera for some of the gimmicky features I have not mentioned, I recommend that you think twice. Yes, there are lots of scene modes and image preview/editing options, as well as extensive bracketing and shooting parameters to adjust. But I consider these to be mainly toys, and I do not use them. If you are shooting portraits in a studio somewhere, such nuanced options may come in handy (but you probably wouldn't want an ultra-zoom in such a setting anyway). If you are taking pictures out in the real world, there is just not enough time to decide on and set the correct scene mode before you snap.
Two final things: First, the camera contains some internal memory which allows you to take pictures without using the optional xD memory card. But be careful not to lose the USB cable which comes with the camera. The camera-end connector is not standard, and without that cable there is no way to offload those pictures. (I found this out the hard way.) Second, though the quality of video clips is acceptable, the zoom range is severely hobbled when in the video mode. Full-range zoom is not possible when shooting videos.
As you can tell, the SP-570UZ has been a disappointment to me almost from the moment it came out of the box. It may be that this is truly the best camera currently available in this class, but if that is the case, the class has regressed since the C-2100UZ was released in 2001. That would be a shame.
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